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Need some advice on whether or not to return voltage locked 7970

kissenger said:
Pretty sure 1.174 is the standard 7970 stock voltage. Guys who are pushing the core past 1200 are going as high as 1.3.

Also I have ticked the 'unlock voltage control' in AB. Still no luck :(

I highly suspect the card is hard-locked.
Click to expand...

My MSI Lightning 7970 stock volts are 1.112 so they do differ!
 
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To add also that my MSI 7970 OC has voltage adjustment with the stock bios, in the second bios, I flashed the GHz bios to it and it cannot be adjusted in any oc app.

So hopefully, it's the bios thats locking down the voltage and not hardware disabled.

The His Ice-Q 7950 that came with the boost(GHz) bios was voltage locked [email protected] and could not be adjusted, as it wasn't suitable for me and was getting returned, I never played about with flashing the bios.
 
Hi just read your post I am massively hung over at the moment so will give a quick reply my Gigabyte was the 1000mhz/1375mhz stock edition and yes the voltage is 1174mv in afterburner but in trixx it says 1175mv for some reason and unlocked it should go to 1300mv. Hope that helps
 
tommybhoy said:
Humbug, the stock voltage can differ on the 79's, Asic quality determines the stock voltage.

Both 7970's I have used came with low Asic's and stock voltage was 1.175v(max voltage=1.3v.

Whatever the stock voltage is@stock, the most that can be added is +1.25v unless you can remove the limits.

@chief,

Get Gpu-z from here:

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2181/mirrors.php

398eb17453e554180d644e97450dafe7.jpg



Click and save.
Click to expand...

Cheers mate, i've saved it now if Kissenger wants the BIOS.

I have just checked the stock voltages and they are both 1149mv.

One card reads an ASIC quality of 79.1 and the other 80.1.
 
borley said:
@kissenger what are your stock clocks 925/1375 or are they the same as mine 1000/1375?
Thanks
Click to expand...

Same as yours. 1000/1375 at stock.

Chief Barker, thanks for saving the BIOS but I think I'll leave it. I don't want to risk bricking this thing. If it was guaranteed to unlock voltage I might, but I've heard that even BIOS flashes can't help as the hardware is locked. I did read something about someone flashing a GHz BIOS and getting 1.25v on the core as the new 'stock', but they said the card became unstable.

Hopefully someone else with the same card will be willing to flash their BIOS as you never know, it might work.
 
kissenger said:
Same as yours. 1000/1375 at stock.

Chief Barker, thanks for saving the BIOS but I think I'll leave it. I don't want to risk bricking this thing. If it was guaranteed to unlock voltage I might, but I've heard that even BIOS flashes can't help as the hardware is locked. I did read something about someone flashing a GHz BIOS and getting 1.25v on the core as the new 'stock', but they said the card became unstable.

Hopefully someone else with the same card will be willing to flash their BIOS as you never know, it might work.
Click to expand...

Fair enough mate, if i was in your position i would do the same.

I wonder if Gigabyte have been getting a lot of cards coming back to them with faults because of people overclocking/overvolting them.

I have never overvolted my cards and just clocked them to 1100 from day 1 via CCC with +20% power. I have never touched the memory clocks either.

I'm too scared to clock them any higher so i don't know how high they could go.
 
This seems like a great way for AMD to put people off buying their cards. Shame because the Windforce cards usually overclock better that most due to the impressive cooling solution which handles high volts well.
 
chief barker said:
I wonder if Gigabyte have been getting a lot of cards coming back to them with faults because of people overclocking/overvolting them.
Click to expand...

It could be that but I doubt it. I think they're doing this at the behest of AMD due to the launch of the GHz series cards. What's the point of a GHz card if you can just buy a regular 7970 and overclock it to beyond GHz levels yourself?
 
I've had 2x faulty 7850s last 2 weeks OcUK is getting in touch with Gigabyte because of this. Maybe its only Gigabyte? I don't think mine was v locked but i never tried to oc as the card was faulty at boot up.
 
kissenger said:
What's the point of a GHz card if you can just buy a regular 7970 and overclock it to beyond GHz levels yourself?
Click to expand...

The only point of the GHz cards was for review sites imo.

I doubt you will bork your GPU using borley's bios tbh though as it's just the old oc edition bios, it's not the GHz bios if it doesn't clock up to 1.25v in game and if it was bought before the GHz editions appeared.

+1 to rusty on the 5% increase in performance the 7970 has over the 7950 having used both.

There's no point in spending the extra unless you are heavily into benching.
 
tommybhoy, what do you think...? A 7970 overclocked to 1050MHz maximum, or a 7950 for £30 less that is capable of overvolt and overclocking to beyond 1100MHz upto 1200MHz?

What would you do? I'm only gaming at 1920x1200 resolution.
 
tommybhoy said:
The only point of the GHz cards was for review sites imo.

I doubt you will bork your GPU using borley's bios tbh though as it's just the old oc edition bios, it's not the GHz bios if it doesn't clock up to 1.25v in game and if it was bought before the GHz editions appeared.

+1 to rusty on the 5% increase in performance the 7970 has over the 7950 having used both.

There's no point in spending the extra unless you are heavily into benching.
Click to expand...

Benching is where it's at brother. Forget those boring games :D I love staring at numbers again and again...
 
Nelly said:
tommybhoy, what do you think...? A 7970 overclocked to 1050MHz maximum, or a 7950 for £30 less that is capable of overvolt and overclocking to beyond 1100MHz upto 1200MHz?

What would you do? I'm only gaming at 1920x1200 resolution.
Click to expand...

I would find a custom cooled 7950 for £80 less.;)

7950@1200mhz will give equal gaming performance at the very least against a 1050MHz 7970.

The scores below won't help much as the 7970 is using the 12.11 performance drivers that give out big gains but I'll give you them anyway.


7950 Ice-Q@1150/1250MHz/4.738GHz 2500K/16GB 12.8

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4400070

SCORE
P8922 3DMarks
GRAPHICS SCORE
9072
PHYSICS SCORE
8484
COMBINED SCORE
8532

7970@1140/1600 12.11 Beta-AMD's Secret Sauce Driver

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4726560

SCORE
P10406 3DMarks
GRAPHICS SCORE
11154
PHYSICS SCORE
8838
COMBINED SCORE
8414

7970@1200/1823MHz

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4767077

SCORE
P10893 3DMarks
GRAPHICS SCORE
11854
PHYSICS SCORE
8935
COMBINED SCORE
8519

@Greg, you'll go blind mate if you don't stop tweaking your bits.:D
 
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